Unpredictable
by inflowers
Summary: Sequel to Predictable, set just afterwards. It's one thing to agree that you're meant to be together. It's another to put that into practice.


Harvey shows up at Mike's door at 7:48.

He's never been late in his life, and he's not about to start on what could be the first night of the rest of his life. He shudders as he thinks that, so trite and pathetic. But so true, at the same time. He can't even bring himself to be irritated at the soppy, overly emotional thoughts he can't stop himself from thinking.

Harvey pauses at the door, not sure if he should wait outside until their agreed 8 o'clock. But whatever else has happened between them, he's still Harvey God Damn Specter and he's not waiting in the hallway for anyone. So he knocks forcefully on the door and tries not to let out an outrageously inappropriate groan when Mike answers it, shirt undone and hair dripping wet.

"You're early." Mike comments as he leaves the door open for Harvey to follow him in. "I should have known."

"You should have." Harvey agrees after he's composed himself. "Unless this little show was for my benefit," he smirks.

"You wish." Mike replies, towelling off his hair quickly and, much to Harvey's disappointment, buttoning up his shirt. "I just didn't get home from work until late. There's this asshole senior partner who is making everyone's life a living hell."

"He sounds awful." Harvey plays along, finger brushing across the layer of dust built up on Mike's coffee table.

"You have no idea." Mike agrees as he searches around the room for his shoes. "I'll tell you about it over dinner."

Harvey waits patiently for Mike to finish getting ready and takes a minute to be silently grateful that their banter seems to be returning. It's one thing to have missed Mike in his bed, but it was quite another to miss having Mike around to verbally spar with. He's really one of the only people Harvey would consider a worthy opponent.

"Okay, I'm ready." Mike suddenly interrupts Harvey's thoughts, and they head towards the door. "Where are we going, anyway?"

"Where do you wanna go?"

"You didn't plan anything?"

"I seem to remember you telling me that you didn't want me to woo you. You said something about pizza, beer and sex." Harvey quips as they enter the elevator of Mike's building.

"That's funny, Harvey. Where are we really going?"

"My place."

"Harvey-"

"Relax, rookie." Harvey laughs gently. "We'll order pizza, drink some beer and then you can go home."

"Why did I have to get dressed up for that?"

"You didn't." Harvey replies, shrugging. "But I like seeing you wear something other than a skinny tie or your old jeans."

"You like those jeans."

"I like you better out of them." Harvey whispers seductively as he opens the car door for Mike and they climb in.

"Harvey, I don't think-"

"Jesus Mike, would you relax? I'm kidding. Seriously this is whatever you want it to be. I'm just glad you agreed. I'm just…" He pauses, sighing heavily. "I'm just glad you're here."

"Me too." Mike replies easily.

The ride passes mostly in silence, whatever jazz Harvey had selected for the trip being enough for them to sit quietly. Somewhere between their two homes, Mike leaves his hand on the seat between them. It takes Harvey a second to realise it, but as soon as he does his hand moves towards it and curls his fingers around Mikes. Neither of them moves until the car pulls up at Harvey's, and what used to be Mike's, apartment building.

Walking towards the entrance, Harvey realises that Mike isn't following him and he turns to find the younger man staring up at the glass windows towering over them.

"You good?"

"Yeah, it's just… it's been awhile." Mike shrugs. A few more seconds pass before he nods and breathes deeply. "I'm good."

True to Harvey's word and Mike's style, dinner is a laid back affair of pizza (with cheese in the crust, naturally) and a few more beers than Mike would usually have. But if he's being honest, and these days he can't be anything but, he's nervous. They both are. They both know what this could mean, either if it goes well or if it goes badly. So Mike drinks more than he should and Harvey stumbles over jokes and anecdotes that would normally roll of his tongue with ease.

It's well past midnight when Mike finally starts to sober up and thinks about leaving.

"I should get going." He comments, putting the glass of water he responsibly started drinking when he realised how many beers he'd had.

"You don't have to go." Harvey says softly, his eyes not meeting Mikes for fear of what he'd see there. "You can stay, if you want."

"I do." Mike comments embarrassingly quickly. "It's just, it's not a good idea." At the flash of hurt he sees in Harvey's eyes he adds, "Not yet, at least."

"This is going to sound ridiculous…" Harvey starts, already shaking his head like he can't believe that Harvey Specter is about to ask this.

"What is?"

"Can I…" He moves towards Mike, wrapping a hand around the back of his neck. "Can I kiss you?"

"Shit," Mike breathes out because this is as close to Harvey as he's gotten in what feels like forever and his resolve to go back to his own apartment is about as weak as his legs feel right now. "Of course, yeah."

So Harvey does. And Mike reciprocates. And they kiss for what could be hours but is probably more like five minutes, before the song on Harvey's iPod skips to a familiar song that makes them pull away.

"Dance with me." Harvey says softly, extending a hand out to Mike and walks backwards to the middle of the living room. The music fills the empty spaces in what used to be their apartment, and seems to echo in the silence that waits for Mike's response.

"Harvey, I-"

"Please?" And Harvey doesn't beg, he never has. But there's something in his eyes that Mike recognizes as need, want, longing. And Mike can't say no to that.

He walks to the center of the room where Harvey is waiting for him, and lets himself be folded into the older mans arms. Together they sway gently, and Mike's head finds Harvey's shoulder like it's never been anywhere else.

"This is our song." Mike says quietly, his body swaying in time with the music. "I can't believe you remembered."

"How could I ever forget?" Harvey whispers in reply. "I don't have an eidetic memory, but I know everything about us, Mike."

"Everything?"

"Try me."

"Where was our first date?"

"Trick question. The first time we ate together as a 'couple' was in my office and the first time we went out together was to a firm function. Neither of which count as a date, if you ask me."

"So we never had a first date? That seems depressing."

"We could call tonight our first date."

"That's uncharacteristically romantic of you, Harvey."

"I've been known to dabble in romance, Michael."

"Known by who, the hundreds of girls you dated before me?"

"Don't sell me short. Hundreds? More like thousands."

"How could I forget." Mike laughs softly, still moving with the music.

As the song finishes, he kisses Harvey's neck gently and inhales deeply. It doesn't go unnoticed, and Harvey pulls back and looks at him inquisitively.

"It's just…" And Mike pauses, like he's not sure if he wants to say what he's about to. But Harvey's eyes are insistent and gentle in the soft lighting of his apartment, and Mike has never been good at resisting. "I missed it."

"Missed what?"

"That smell. The way you smell."

"Oh." Harvey replies, and is speechless for one of the first times in his life.

"It's nothing, forget it." Mike quickly backtracks, turning and walking towards the kitchen. He's not sure what he's going to do when he gets there, but he knows he can't stay there under Harvey's stare forever. As much as he wants to.

But he doesn't get very far as a hand reaches out and grabs hold of him, pulling him back into a firm hug.

"Hey." Harvey speaks quietly. "It's not nothing."

He doesn't say anything more about it, but Mike understands. That in some small way, by letting Mike hang on to Harvey like he's about to float away any second, Harvey is reminding him that he's in this for the long haul. That it's different to last time, that this time, no matter how scared he is, he's not going to run.

Mike leaves Harvey's apartment after their 'first date' and spends the entire cab ride home wondering how the man he just kissed upstairs could be the same man who tore his world completely apart. And when the cab drops him off outside his home, he spends the rest of the walk up to his apartment thinking the same thing. And he spends the rest of the night tossing in his bed, wondering if the way his body feels like it's on fire is because Harvey had run his hands over it or because it's trying to tell him to run. He wants to give it all over to him, to be happy again. But he can't live through the hurt that came with Harvey walking away. He can't do that to himself, not again.

Mike doesn't sleep that night, too busy thinking about whether he's making the best or worst decision of his life.

+

"I can't talk to you about him." Donna doesn't even look up as Mike approaches her desk, but because she's Donna she knows those footsteps anywhere.

"What? Donna, that's not what I-"

"Yes it is. You want to know what I think. You want to know whether I would believe him when he says he's done messing you around. You want to know what you should do, and you're coming to someone who knows Harvey for advice."

"I just need to talk to someone."

"And I want to help you, Mike. But it's _Harvey_."

"I know. I know it's Harvey, that's why I need help." Mike pleads quietly, persistently. "And you know him, probably better than I do. I need to know whether I'm making the right decision."

"Listen. You already know the answer. You wouldn't have done it if it weren't what you want. And I can't tell you whether it's all going to work out Mike, but what I can tell you is that I've never seen him more miserable than the last six months. And this morning he bought me coffee." She explains, as though that means something. Thankfully, Mike is smart enough to realize that it does. "He's happier when you're around, and I think he's realized what life is like without you and I doubt he'd do anything to screw it up again."

"I thought you couldn't talk to me about him?" Mike smirks, leaning on the partition surrounding her desk.

Luckily, she smiles back at him, her normally steely eyes softening.

"I want him to be happy. He deserves to be happy. And I'll deny that I said this for as long as I live, but I want you to be happy too."

"Thanks, Donna."

"Now scram, he's coming this way and if he catches me talking warm and fuzzies with you my life won't be worth living."

"My lips are sealed." Mike smiles at her before turning to see Harvey striding down the corridor.

"Ross, if you're quite finished gossiping with my assistant I have some briefs that need proofing and I don't trust anyone from that cesspit we call an associate pool."

"And god forbid you'd do it yourself." Donna quips, rolling her eyes and turning back to the screen in front of her. "Harvey, your real estate agent called again. She's pretty insistent that you call her back."

"I thought you were handling that?" Harvey asks, his eyes focusing on Mike. "I said I didn't care either way."

"And I told you that you were going to have to talk to her eventually."

"Well, what are we doing? Are we selling it or keeping it? Do people who are divorced but dating even have holiday homes?"

"There's nothing conventional about what's going on between you two." Donna stands and shoves a card into Harvey's hand. "Either way, whatever you two decide to do, call her back because she's driving me insane."

"Is that what we are?" Mike asks as Donna struts down the corridor away from them, no doubt on her way to torment some of the first years with painfully obvious crushes on her. "Dating?"

"Uh, I don't... I thought so?" Harvey stutters, walking into his office and trusting that Mike was following him. "I mean, what have we been doing for the last few weeks?"

"No, dating is right. I guess it's just weird to think of us as dating given, you know. Everything." Mike throws himself into the leather of the couch and leans back into the cushions. "Hey, does this mean I can introduce you to people as my boyfriend?" He smirks, eyes twinkling with a boyish charm that they both know has been missing lately.

"Who are you planning on introducing me to?" Harvey laughs, sitting down at his desk. "I know everyone you know already."

"I could have new friends. I was a single man about town for six months Harvey, I might have met some people."

"Did you?" Harvey's eyes flash with something Mike recognizes as jealousy, and he can't help but feel somewhat gratified at that.

"Yeah, I met plenty of new people." And Mike is planning on milking this for all it's worth, even if he knows the truth is a boring story. "Every second person in the office tried to set me up with their cousin, or their landlord, or their mothers uncle's best friend's son."

"I thought you said everyone wanted us to get back together?"

"They did, at first. But I think that's when they thought we were just fighting about something trivial."

"Oh." Harvey pauses, quietly taps his pen on the desk and doesn't look up as he says, "So you met other people then?"

"I met them, sure. But none of them were particularly special. They bored me, more than anything." And Mike yawns, maybe just for effect.

"Did you sleep with any of them?"

"Harvey, what kind of question is that? You filed for divorce, what I did after that isn't any of your business."

"It's my business now." Harvey replies petulantly.

"How is it? We weren't together."

"And now we are, so tell me."

"Why are you doing this? Have I, at any stage, asked you whether you slept with other people?"

"You could if you wanted to."

"But I don't, because it's just going to upset me and we weren't together so I have no right to be mad about it. Can you just let this go?"

"No. Tell me. Was it Rachel? Did you sleep with her?"

"Jesus, Harvey. Stop." Mike sighs exasperatedly, standing and moving towards the door.

"Fine, I'll let it go. But if you don't tell me I'm always going to wonder. And I thought you were the one who said that this time around we were going to be all about communicating."

"Okay fine, you want to know?" He turns abruptly, finally too annoyed to hold back. "I tried, alright? I tried because I just thought that getting off with someone would make me feel better. But every time someone would touch me or kiss me or try to undress me I couldn't stop thinking about goddamn Harvey Specter and how he would have done it better. So no, Harvey. I didn't sleep with any of the people I went on dates with because I haven't been able to think of anyone but you."

"There." Harvey smiles, self-satisfied. "Was that so hard?"

"You're an asshole." Mike reluctantly smiles back, because well – it's true.

"You've been saying that for years. And yet, here you are."

"Here I am." He agrees, and though they have a steadfast rule about their interactions at work, Mike can't help but want to wrap his arms around Harvey, because he's missed this. He's missed their banter, their witty conversations and he's missed being around Harvey without resenting him. In this moment, right now, he can remember everything it was about Harvey Specter that drew him in. And none of what broke his heart.

+

It takes six months for Mike to be ready to commit to anything other than the casual dating they'd been doing. He's always got a reason for Harvey, why he can't stay for longer than one night. Why they can't move in together again. Why they need to keep it as casual as possible. And Harvey is fine with it at first. How could he not be, when he was the one who walked out on Mike in the first place. But after one too many mornings where he wakes without Mike in his bed, he starts asking questions that Mike doesn't have the answers to yet.

On the anniversary of his grandmother's death, Mike goes to her grave. He sits next to her on the cold ground, facing the headstone that he paid for after he sold the apartment he bought for her. His fingers trace the name, the dates, and the dedication he picked out for her.

"He's a good man, Grammy. He pretends like he isn't sometimes, but he's not fooling anyone. I hate that you didn't get to meet him. I hate that you never got to see how happy he makes me. Or, how happy he made me." Mike pauses, his fingers reaching out to trail across the engraving on the headstone. "I don't even know. I wish you could have known him like I know him, so you could tell me what to do. How I think I know him, at least. I can't even tell anymore, Grammy. I feel more out of my depth now than when he first left. How am I supposed to be able to trust him again?"

Mike sighs deeply, wanting to be able to say so much but more than anything wishing she could respond.

"I love him, Grammy. I always have. I just don't know how to give him all of me when the last time I did… he left."

He sits quietly for a few more minutes, the only sound the birds that are seemingly so happy for somewhere so sad. After awhile he gets up and slowly walks back to his bike, dragging his feet with weariness. As though with every step there was something new he had to think about, something new on his mind. And they were all about Harvey.

It's not until he's reached his bike that he realises he forgot his scarf, and a quick look up at the sky reveals to Mike that it's only going to get colder. There had been no snow in New York so far this Christmas, but experience taught him that riding through the sleet and slush that was about to happen with no scarf was a nightmare. He quickly turns and hurries back through the cemetery, now walking with a distinct purpose.

As he nears her headstone he sees someone has already beaten him to it and is standing and staring down at the cold ground. Walking closer, he recognises the distinct lines of the mans stance, a familiar scarf wrapped around his neck, strong hands hanging down by his side.

Even from far away, Mike can see him talking. He knows he should keep his distance, whatever Harvey needs to say is between Harvey and Grammy. But Mike is nothing if not curious, and he can't seem to stop his feet from moving forward.

"…I don't usually do this kind of thing. I'm not known for talking to the dead. Even my father, I – well, I drink with the dead I guess. But don't often talk. Anyway." Harvey clears his throat and Mike stops in his tracks, just close enough that he can hear. "It's been awhile since you died. I've been trying to take care of him. But all I've done is fuck it up-uh; I mean, mess it up over and over again. And now he's given me this last shot and I'm trying to prove it to him that I'm in this, but he's keeping me at arms length and I'm god damn terrified that it's never going to be any different. I'm scared out of my mind he's never going to trust me again."

"I will." Mike suddenly speaks up, and Harvey whips around to come face to face with him. Mike's not even sure he had control of the way he spoke, but he couldn't let Harvey go on torturing himself for the both of them. "I mean, I do. I do trust you."

"No, you don't." Harvey replies, regaining his composure after being caught off guard. "How could you?"

"Because I believe you that this time will be different."

"If you believe me, why are you always keeping your distance from me?"

"Because I'm scared too. But I don't want to live with regrets Harvey, and if you and I don't get this right then I'm always going to wonder 'what if.' What if I had trusted you. What if I had just let whatever was supposed to be happen."

"Don't tell me you've gone all new age." Harvey tries to laugh, but he's tired and nothing about this is really funny to him anymore.

"No." Mike replies, also not laughing. "But I'm tired Harvey, and all I want is you. I don't care about any of the other shit. I don't care about what happens at work or what will happen in five years if you decide you can't do this anymore. I don't care about any of it because every part of my body misses you. Even when you're right next to me, and it's because I haven't let myself have you for the last six months."

"You can have me, Mike. I'm right here. You're right here. We're together, we just need to…" And Harvey stops because he's not really sure what they need to do.

"What? What do we need to do?"

"We need to get out of this weather." Harvey finally replies as the first flurries of snow start falling. Mike agrees softly, grabbing the scarf he'd left behind.

"Let's go home." Mike says, sliding his hand into Harvey's gloved one.

"Yours or mine?" Harvey again tries to joke.

"Ours."

"Ours?"

"Yeah. Ours. I'm in, Harvey. You and me. I'm in."

"Me too." Harvey says after a moment, the corner of his mouth turning upwards in his trademark smirk. "Come on. Lets go home."


End file.
